Poker

Poker Laboratory

Five simulators with which the site started in 2011: card distribution, hyper-turbo SNG, bankroll variance, coin duel, and preflop all-in. Now — with proper graphics and calculation without reloading the page.

Since 2011 5 simulators Without bets

Coin

Coin-flip duel

Classic site generator: two players with different odds, a series of tosses, advantage, and winning streaks. Shows how a "small edge" works in the long run.

~0.5 s

All-in

All-in preflop

All-in preflop simulator: equity, advantage, re-raises, and super re-raises 88/12. The good old analysis 'how it was dealt'.

~1 s

Cards

Card dealer

A random deal from a full deck: from two to nine players, flop, turn, river, and fold. With a hand strength evaluation.

instantly

Tournaments

Hyper-Turbo SNG

Bankroll simulation in hyper-turbo SNG: place, prizes, buy-in, and ROI over distance. You can see how variance eats up the edge.

~1 s

Variance

Tournament variance

Five hundred players with the same skill — and completely different bankrolls. The best illustration of variance in tournaments.

~2 s

What simulators show

A coincidence that can be seen

Poker is mathematics with a short memory: each hand starts from zero, and the long-term result is made up of thousands of independent events. Simulators help to see this mechanism as a whole, rather than through a single successful session.

Dispersion is stronger than it seems

A positive ROI does not cancel out strings of dozens of losses. The variance of results over a short distance is almost always greater than the expected profit.

ROI is not equal to profit

The return on investment is calculated based on the sum of buy-ins and prizes. One first place can give more than a hundred neat third places.

Chance has no memory

A series of ten losses does not make a victory in the next tournament any closer. Each event is independent — and this is easy to verify in a long series.

Honest source of randomness

Cards and results are determined by a cryptographic generator on the server: without 'tweaking' for a specific player and without saving the history of hands.

Variance: why identical players get different bankrolls

Imagine a hundred people who play the same way and have the same mathematical edge. After a thousand tournaments, they will have completely different bankrolls: some will be in the positive, some deeply in the negative, even though none of them played better than the others. This is not a calculation error — it is a property of random variables with a large spread.

In hyper-turbo SNGs, almost the entire prize pool goes to first place, so the distribution of results is heavily skewed: most tournaments end with a loss of the buy-in, while a rare win covers dozens of losses. The lower the probabilities of finishing in the money, the longer the distance needed for the result to approach the expectation.

The variance simulator shows this clearly: hundreds of players with the same parameters, the histogram of bankrolls, and the distribution quartiles. The Hyper-Turbo SNG simulator lets you look at a single bankroll over time, and the card dealing explains where the randomness itself comes from.

What is worth keeping in mind

The result in a short distance says almost nothing about the quality of the game;
The mathematical expectation manifests itself only in a long series of tournaments;
The probabilities in each tournament are independent — a 'streak of luck' does not accumulate;
All amounts in the simulators are fictional: this is a model, not an invitation to play.

How pages are arranged

Parameters are set in the left panel, the calculation is sent to the server via JSON API and returned without reloading the page: graphs, tables, and statistics are updated in place. Historical algorithms of old pages are preserved — only the interface has changed.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is this a gambling game?

No. These are educational randomness simulators: bets are not accepted, no prize fund is formed, and winnings are not paid out. All amounts are virtual units, needed only for illustrative purposes.

Where do the cards and results come from?

From a cryptographic generator on the server (CSPRNG) with uniform distribution without bias. The deck is honestly shuffled, each deal does not depend on the previous one.

Why do players with the same skill have different bankrolls?

Due to variance. Prize positions are random, so even the same strategy gives different results: one person's bankroll increases, while another's goes into the negative.

Is it possible to learn to play using a simulator?

It helps to understand probabilities and variance, but it does not replace poker theory: there are no bets, positions, or opponent ranges here.

Is everything counted in the browser?

Interface, evaluation of combinations, and charts — in the browser. The simulations themselves are computed on the server so as not to burden the phone or laptop over long distances.

Poker Laboratory is an educational simulator of randomness and variance. It is not a gambling game: bets are not accepted, prizes are not paid out, all amounts are fictional. Legal information

Where to start

Start with one hand

Two cards per player, five on the board, and the evaluation of the best combination of seven cards. Next — tournaments, ROI, and bankroll distribution over the long run.

Deal the cards Hyper-Turbo SNG